Spidersecu Don't Believe the Hype

SpunkySelfTwitter It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

Keeley Coleman The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Calum Hutton It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Edgar Allan Pooh . . . Warner Bros. Movie Studio's strongest warnings as to what could be in store for America, if Capitalism ever is allowed to run roughshod again over the backs of Average Citizens, as it had done in the early 1900s. (As the PBS offering MINE WARS recently documented, back then callous "businessmen" were murdering workers in multiples of one hundred ALL THE TIME in Non-Union Coal Mines for the "privilege" of earning starvation wages, and heavily armed People's Armies numbering in the thousands--led by America's World War One Heroes--shot it out with the Capitalists' Hench People during military campaigns spanning entire states.) In HOLIDAY FOR STRINGS, Warner's animators depict America's Worker Bees as elves, helping out a malingering shoe repair shop owner who feigns an "illness." Then these underpaid Capitalist Pawns notice that the "sick" businessman (or "job creator," in Fox "News"-speak) is trying to sneak away to play golf. Warner shows the worker elves immediately revolting, nailing down the Fat Cat miscreant in a helpless position of House Arrest, and going out to golf themselves. Under U.S. Presidents Truman and Eisenhower, Rich People paid more of their fair share for the American Dream--about a 90% top tax rate. Warner shows in HOLIDAY FOR STRINGS the sort of chaos that results when the rate falls to all-times lows, like today, and the Wealth Disparity explodes to unconscionable record highs.

Robert Reynolds This is one of Friz Freleng's musically driven shorts from Warner Brothers studio. There will be spoilers ahead:There are only a couple of segments which have dialog and what little there is was recorded at higher speeds, though it hardly matters. The animation is set to various pieces of classical music and the timing of things is superb The basic plot is straight out of fairy tales, namely "The Shoemaker and the Elves". A shoemaker is laid up in bed and needs help in his shop. Cue the music and the elves. There follows a series of scenes, each set to some piece of classical music, with the animation timed to the music-and excellently timed at that.There are really nice bits like two elves doing a turn on Charlie Chaplin's "little Tramp", two others who do Laurel and Hardy and various other bits such as Russian elves to some Russian music. Different types of work is done to music. one of the highlights is when two less than bright elves try to hammer in a nail. The scenes are done perfectly, with a typical Warner's conclusion.The ending of the short is a twist on the original, with the shoemaker trying to sneak off to play golf, only to be caught by the elves. It's a beautiful ending.This short is available on DVD and is worth finding. Most recommended.

slymusic "Holiday for Shoestrings" is a wonderfully musical Warner Bros. cartoon, and who better to synchronize music with animation than director Friz Freleng! Thanks to composer/orchestrator Carl W. Stalling, numerous familiar pieces of music accompany a group of hardworking shoemaker elves. And don't worry, there are plenty of funny gags! Highlights: There is a running gag of two dopey elves who repeatedly whack each other on the foot by accident and then have an argument. Two other elves don busby hats & boots as they perform a Russian kick dance. The head shoemaker, supposedly sick in bed, tries to sneak out of his shop to go play golf, but the elves gang up on him, place him back in bed, and nail the bedsheets to the floor, as if to say, "Yeah, buddy, you darn well better be appreciative of all the hard work we do for you!" And watch for some nice caricatures of Charlie Chaplin and Laurel & Hardy.Among the pieces of music in "Holiday for Shoestrings" that I recognize are Chopin's "Minute Waltz" and "Grand Valse Brilliante", Mendelssohn's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" Overture, Strauss' "Tales from the Vienna Woods" and "Voices of Spring", and several dances from Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker". You can find this cartoon on Disc 2 of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 5, with an additional audio commentary by music historian Daniel Goldmark.

toodler2th to some of my favorite music. These elves are cool, and how about when the cobbler decides to sneak out for a round of golf? I love this cartoon. I hope WB or whomever has control of these cartoons puts them out on dvd so we can enjoy them at our leisure.